Calculators have long been a fixture in grade school mathematics classrooms. Calculators allow students in the classroom to learn and explore advanced mathematical concepts. Students that have mastered addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, may employ four-function calculators, for example, to allow them to focus on more advanced concepts while avoiding laborious and tedious underlying arithmetic. Scientific calculators may provide more advanced mathematical computation to allow students to focus on still higher mathematical concepts.
With the advent of more-powerful, inexpensive microprocessors came the introduction of graphing calculators. In the intervening time, graphing calculators have become a fixture in high school mathematics courses. The increased processing power of these devices allows them to, among other things, solve complex mathematical equations, determine variable values, and graph complex functions. Many of these calculators can also execute user-created programs. Of course, doing so requires access to a basic editor, usually included in the calculator, and increased memory space, which may be used to store the additional information. Partially as a result of this ability to create, store, and access user-created content, the use of graphing calculators during examinations has been debated. In some circumstances, particularly those related to standardized examinations (e.g., the SAT Reasoning Test, the ACT test, etc.), use of graphing calculators is strictly regulated or even prohibited.
More recently, manufacturers of graphing calculators have implemented wireless communication (e.g., IEEE 802.11 protocols) to allow the calculators to communicate with other devices. While this new capability has practical and useful applications in the classroom setting, it further complicates the issue of using calculators during academic examinations.
Manufacturers of some graphing calculators have implemented software on the calculators that allows certain functions of the devices to be disabled when the device is placed into an examination mode. In addition to disabling selected functions and built-in capabilities of the graphing calculator, entering the examination mode typically prohibits access to any user-created content on the calculator, restoring the access to content when the device exits the examination mode. At least one family of graphing calculators requires connection of one device to another in order to exit the examination mode.
As more powerful processors have become available, manufacturers have integrated these processors into ever-smaller devices such as portable media players (PMPs) and “smart” phones. In addition to implementing its primary function (e.g., playing media, making phone calls, etc.), each of these devices may be programmed to execute additional functions, such as sending/receiving e-mail and text messages, word processing, calendar functions, browsing the World Wide Web, taking photographs, playing games, and any number of others. Typically, each function implemented on these portable, multi-function computers, is written as a separate application. Collectively, these applications are often referred to as “apps.”
Currently, portable, multi-function computers cannot be used in the examination environment, especially in the realm of standardized examinations, because of the risk of cheating by, for example, using a multi-function computer to retrieve information from the Internet or accessing a prohibited function or application.